There has never been a better time to be a British heavyweight boxer with talent and ambition, a point Audley Harrison and Michael Sprott will be keen to make when they dispute Sprott's European title at Wembley Arena on Saturday night.

It is supposed to be Harrison's show. He talks loudest and longest, a well-tutored child of the boxing business. 'Fraudley' and 'Audrey' are what his army of sniping doubters have called the big man with all the style but not, as yet, enough of the mongrel in him to make a convincing mark on his sport.

But, shrewd businessman that he is, Harrison knows the division is in such a pitiful state that he could yet haul himself up the rankings and put himself in place for a shot at one of the many championships on offer. Otherwise, he might as well look after his health, looks and money and walk away from boxing.

Harrison, a smart southpaw with a good right cross, ought to beat Sprott, who has lost 10 and won 29 bouts since his debut just over a decade ago, although he did well to get a split decision in Germany over the previously unbeaten local man Rene Dettweiler to win the title in November. The Reading fighter is, nevertheless, maddeningly inconsistent, having won and lost against the equally unreliable Danny Williams, and suffering a 12th-round knockout against Matt Skelton.

The in-out form of the leading heavy men sums up the state of the division. Of Harrison, Sprott, Skelton, Williams and Scott Gammer - the unbeaten Welshman who defends his British title against Williams in Neath next month - there is not one who invites the confident prediction that he would become a genuine world champion in the mould of Lennox Lewis, or even Frank Bruno. There are a lot of Herbie Hides out there, though, including the original, who, at 35, still harbours hopes of doing something in the division.

What makes their jobs easier than in the past is the fact there is not a standout world champion anywhere. Only the return of Vitali Klitschko against the WBC champion Oleg Maskaev in Moscow in April sends even a ripple of excitement through heavyweight boxing. But Klitschko, plagued by back problems, has not boxed since he knocked out Williams more than two years ago.

If you want a snapshot of the dire state of heavyweight boxing, look at the contrasting circumstances of Evander Holyfield and Seamus Patrick McDonagh. They fought nearly 17 years ago and both are still in the headlines, but for vastly contrasting reasons.

McDonagh, from County Meath via Brooklyn and a score of gyms and rings and too many bars, has become an overnight TV star in America. In a short clip on Al Gore's TV station, CurrentTV, that will make all but the hardest heart melt and ought to be compulsory viewing for those who imagine that boxing in any way resembles other branches of the professional sports entertainment industry, McDonagh recites Paul Simon's 'The Boxer' to telling effect. A tear rolls down his cheek at the end and a tiny smile illuminates his handsome face. So moving is the moment, that 38 million viewers have made the cameo number one on the station.

McDonagh is 44 and in fair shape but has no plans for a comeback. He is an actor now, and might go on to be quite a famous one. But it has been a hell of a journey.

The Irishman, really a cruiserweight propelled into the more glamorous heavyweight division by connections eager to maximise his Celtic clout, shared ring space with Holyfield back in 1990 when he was fresh and keen, a former Golden Gloves champion with a decent pro record. He 'knocked the lunch out of Holyfield' with a right cross, as he puts it, but he was not good enough to hold off the rising star from Atlanta. Holyfield stopped him in the fourth round and, in his next fight, beat Buster Douglas to become the undisputed world champion. McDonagh fought once more, knocked out again after boxing seven rounds in what he describes as 'a blackout', then quit. But he had come mighty close to making it.

Holyfield is the same age as McDonagh but looks many years older. As he outlined in OSM last week, Holyfield intends to box on until he wins back the title he held four times. 'The best is yet to come,' he said. Looking at his battered features, listening to his blind optimism, you are torn between pity and concern for someone who could utter such a patently foolish mission statement without a hint of irony.

The awful truth is that boxing will accommodate him. It always has a place for suckers and losers. Seventeen years ago, McDonagh was that loser. Somehow, he survived. To borrow from Holyfield's argot of evangelism, he overcame.

Holyfield is dreaming a dangerous dream. He has won just three times in six years. He has been beaten up and humiliated by lesser fighters. The New York State Athletic Commission will not license him. He could be badly hurt by any one of the admittedly ordinary heavyweights jostling for dominance.

Holyfield is inspired - if that is the right way to describe his delusion - by another man of God, George Foreman. Big George, who has made considerably more flogging his grilling machine than he ever did from boxing, came from behind to knock out Michael Moorer in the final round of their 1994 fight and win the title back when he was a year older than Holyfield is now.

But Moorer had a weak chin - and George always had the power. Holyfield has very little of his once considerable arsenal in anything like working order. It is not Foreman he should look towards for a lesson, it is the man who bit his ear before Holyfield destroyed his myth, Mike Tyson.

Tyson last week admitted himself to one of those expensive rehab units so loved by celebrities too weak to be honest with themselves when others are listening to their lies. We can only wish him well, as he wrestles with his various addictions. At least he has shaken the fighting bug. Bruno, too, has come to terms with his failings and is determined not to lapse again into using the drugs that contributed to his mental breakdown.

This is the fight game as it is, not as Holyfield and other fantasists would have you believe it exists. It is a deadly undertaking, full of traps, a drain on its participants' self esteem and nerve, and hugely unforgiving. Boxers have to be spiritually as well as physically strong to handle the unreal pressures of fighting for a living. And not nearly enough is done to help those who cannot cope.

There's a young heavyweight having his first professional fight at Wembley on Saturday night who, no doubt, has as many dreams in front of him as McDonagh did when he started out, or Holyfield, Tyson, Bruno - and a thousand others whose names have been forgotten.

There's certainly nothing wrong with Derek 'Del Boy' Chisora's ego. He is 23 and can box and bang. In an impressive amateur career he won the ABA super-heavyweight title and a Four Nations gold medal. On Saturday he is introduced to Istvan Kecskes and will be disappointed if the bout lasts the scheduled four rounds. The Hungarian from Wolverhampton has lost 20 times in 23 outings and can't punch.

'When I started boxing I went for the ABAs and I was on a mission,' Chisora says, 'and right now the mission is to become British and Commonwealth champion and after that I'll step it up.'

Chisora promises to upstage the main event. 'What talent?' he asks when the names of Harrison, Sprott, Williams, Skelton and Gammer are mentioned. 'I don't want to be a bragger but I'm going to take the show off Audley Harrison.'

Maybe he will. He might even go on to be heavyweight champion of the world. And maybe, if he's lucky, he won't have to shine shoes or sing for his supper like McDonagh was doing until a film-maker discovered what a charming Irish rascal he is.